Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-11-05
Rotation OF Crops.

This is a subject which has been fire.
I, quently considered in these columns, anC
commended, but the fact has hitherto beer
confronting the proposition that the sea
sons peculiar to California were not favora,
bic, and in many classes of production.
would not permit such rotation. The in.
production OF irrigation will, however, not
only remove this obstacle. but will make
this State by reason Of its prolific" eli
mate, and of our productive soil, the most
available for variation and rotation OF
crops of any part of the globe. The fol.
lowing, therefore, from bulletin lately
issued by Prof. J. w. Sanborn, of the
Missouri Agricultural College, will be OF
interest upon the subject:
Rotations are valuable because plants
vary in the area of the soil in which the
roots grow, and from which they derive
the sustenanceo of the plant, thus more COM
pletely utilizing the soil within their
reach
There is remarkable variation in the
power OF plants to appropriate the various
elements of plant growth, due, at least in
part, to the character of the acids secreted
by their roots. Thus one plant. like clio
yer, has higher power of gathering nitro
gen, and another, like wheat, very low
power.
Plants vary in their weight of roots; as
an illustration clover, carrying several
times the weight of roots that wheat does,
1t Will be seen that, inasmuch as clover
roots are very much richer in nitrogen
than wheat, and carry enough nitrogen to
grow crop of wheat, that wheat will most
advantageously follow clover Thus, like
wise, other plants follow each other adj
yantageously.
Rotation of crops battles, in large
measure, the root enemies, both insect and
fungus, that prey upon them. Each plant
having its own peculiar enemies, changing
of plants removes them TO fields unoccu-
pied by such enemies This is true of the
above-ground growth of plants to an I'M
portant degree.
Plants vary in the amounts of the vary
ing elements of nutrition actually taken
up in growth. Thus, while wheat takes
one and one-fourth pounds of potash for
every pound of phosphoric acid, potatoes
take three and one-fourth pounds of potash
for every pound of phosphoric acid Con-
tlnuous growth of potatoes would exhaust
the potash of the soil or of supplied ma
nure long before the phosphoric acid would
give out.
The leaves of plants vary in their power
of gaining food and of vaporizing water,
and are roughly divided into broad and
narrow leaved.
Leaves vary in their season of active
growth. Those plants maturing in mid
summer and early fall generally gather
nitrogen (corn and turnips are good ex-
amples), following in their growth the
decomposing influence of the sun, more
easily and fully than other crops do.
Rotation conserves soil fertility and yet
aids in soil decomposition by alienation
of grass, or cover crops and hoed crops.
Under continuation of pillow and tillage
crops, teaching, votalization and washing
of fertility is rapid and may be or is more
than carried away by crops, especially so
Of nitrogen.
Rotation of crops distributes labor over
the year, and therefore economies labor
and gives regular help and aids in the
solution of the labor problem of the farm.